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You might assume that as the resident MMO gamer (read: WoW addict) and one of the founding overlords of GWJ, I maintain some position of authority in the grand scheme of our World of Warcraft guild, and you would be entirely, epically, galactically wrong.

I am a happy participant in the usually comfortable family of the guild, but my capacity for tackling the challenges of guild leadership are as woefully underdeveloped as my ability to write lyrical poetry in Yiddish or juggle puppies. I have always relied on people far more willing to invest considerable effort into the logistics and politics of such endeavors, and asked only that the basic philosophies of the site be applied and that I not be subject to removal for inappropriate assault with purple prose.

So, when the guild this week torn asunder by a deep and long simmering schism, you might also assume that I was directly involved and active in the drama that ended in the loss of a dozen or more people including long standing officers from the group. Again, you would be wrong. I was a passive observer, as distressed by the partings of ways as anyone else, a passenger as so many guild members were on an out of control train doomed to derail.

This article is not about that guild drama. It is about the grandness of the personal fallout I witnessed in people who I had never really realized placed such identity and stake into this online platform. It is about the reality that I am only just beginning to comprehend — that relationships of a purely online nature are now as complex, sophisticated and potentially devastating when they fall apart as any in meat space.

It is also about being an outsider.

I have been a part of many gaming groups, and have always operated from the assumption that they were transitory and ultimately unsustainable. As a result I approached them casually, perhaps even flippantly, because when they inevitably fell apart I didn’t want to lose time moving on to whatever the next thing was for me.

I am one of those people who has never really understood the concept of building online relationships in games. Yes, at this point it would be appropriate to point out that it is at least odd for me to suggest that I’m no good at developing these kinds of connections online, but that’s not quite what I'm trying to say. What I am saying, admitting in a way, is not that I don’t know how to do it. It’s that I haven’t known how to take it seriously.

It is only through years of working, and in many cases making face to face connections, that I’ve built what I feel like are lasting and permanent connections with some of the people I have worked with almost every day for seven years.

But, watching the events unfold over the past few days has been less like spying on the meaningless end of some known but disposable group quantity, and more like an uncontested divorce on the grounds of irreconcilable differences. It is an exploration of people in genuine emotional distress over relationships founded entirely in the service of a game, something we may be taking for granted with our post-millennial sensibilities, but that has qualities that may be unique across the whole of human history.

When I think constructively about this, it is a staggering thing to me the capacity of human beings to evolve communities and relationships. As I look in from the outside on people whose only connection has ever been an exchange of data on the tender fibers of an international electronic network, and realize the emotional attachments that have still managed to be created in that medium I am genuinely staggered, and left feeling a little bit like I have missed out. Yes, there is heartache — true, genuine sadness — now, but that is only possible because of the deep roots that people allowed to take hold, often with nothing but a voice and an avatar to operate from.

I begin to realize that I have been incredibly cynical about online relationships, even as I was encouraging the platforms on which they could flourish. Perhaps because I love no topic more than that of myself, or perhaps because my capacity for selfishness is a great and wide ocean brimming ever over, my take away from what others might casually dismiss as just guild drama is a deeper respect for people who are willing to put themselves for better or worse into a group like this.

This has never been my strength. I am the son of a salesman, and I know the art of making nice with people. I know how to make acquaintances. But the number of people outside my family who I trust on an emotionally resonant level where they could actually do me harm? Maybe four. Maybe.

So, I watch from the outside looking in not because the group has left me out, but because I’ve never really been willing to come all the way inside. I walk away from the ordeal with maybe a slightly better understanding of the people I share online spaces with, but, oddly, less of an understanding about how I fit into those groups. Or even of myself.

That's not a discouraging thing though. In fact, it might actually be quite hopeful if looked at from the right perspective.

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Watching Team Fortress clans recruit, merge, fall apart, and disintegrate in the mid-90s was one of the more mindblowing experiences the Internet has opened my eyes to. I felt much the same as Elysium, although I seem to recall being somewhat more vested in the squabbling and inevitably dissatisfying outcome.

This article is not about that guild drama.

I kinda wish it was.

I am not an MMO guy, but I love the stories of double-crossing and intrigue that come out of EVE Online every once in a while.

Guild Drama brings back sooo many memories.
I was once a recruiting officer for a WoW guild that was ran like a dictatorship, and it worked because everyone loved and respected the dictator. Of course, infighting between the veterans was par for the course. I remember a fairly dramatic thread of one veteran who ostensibly quit because of me and the support that I had from the leader. "Power Hungry" was probably the most pleasant adjective thrown my way.
Of all the things I miss about WoW (and there are a lot), guild drama is not one of them. No matter how much people like and respect each other, in a game like WoW where you're so interdependent, priorities and preferences inevitably lead to conflict.

I now get my multiplayer fix with drunken late-night weekend L4D2, and couldn't be happier.

Nice article Elysium. I relate to this also as an outsider that is not really willing to go all the way inside.

I have built online relationships before, and I found it to be the same as in meatspace. The group and the outsider have to build up a trust. You have to find a place to fit in and want to fill that role, and the group accepts you to that role. It was exhilarating when I first discovered that online social relationships could be just as complex, intricate, and fulfulling as someone I met face to face.

I abhor drama, but I also hate ambivalence. The best scenario is a group that trusts each other and makes sure that any one new to the group is also a part of that trust.

He's not a fighter, he's a lover. But he's also a lover, so don't get any ideas.

I guess I knew that there were political and personal undercurrents to guilds, but I never suspected the depths to which they ran. Even though this article only raises the specter of such undercurrents, its presence sort of caught me unawares, and now has me intrigued, as any good salacious* gossip about people you know can pique curiosity.

Funny, I've been contemplating a similar topic for discussion about how people connect with others they've never actually met.

I feel like an outside in pretty much every online setting. I've lurked a lot of different forums and communities, but never really been a part of them, or not enough to be noticed. The only MMO's I've played were with real life friends.

Part of it is that I have a hard time associating things that I read with actual people, or rather, it takes a long time before I can start to link an actual person up with the lines of text on a page. I forget the things that get said and the links between other forum members often escape me. I listen to a lot of podcasts, but I'm not that good with differentiating voices of people I haven't met personally. I need a face to go with the text or the voice, otherwise it's mostly a blur. Perhaps I'm far too much of a kinesthetic/visual learner.

I've been around GWJ longer than any other community because it's small yet active enough that I can actually remember some people beyond just some text and an avatar.

I can sympathize completely with this article, it pretty much also describes me. I've been in a variety of guilds with a variety of characters over the years, and have seen my share of drama - it's never really made much sense to me. I've certainly met some interesting, some funny, some cool people online, but they were just ... WoW characters. They come, they go, there is always someone new to meet. I don't even go as far as getting on voice chat with my fellow WoW players, so there is always a layer of ... impersonality that lets me keep my distance. As a hardcore introvert, that's exactly how I like it.

Seattle, where the weather is unlikely to kill you in an interesting fashion.

Back in the early 90's, I played a MUD (Ancient Anguish, in case you're interested) for a year or two. I joined a guild, and enjoyed not-a-little bit of griefing. The culmination of which was revealing to my in-game spouse (another player) that my real-life persona was not, as I had told him, Joan, but actually Jon. I was amazed when the guy went ballistic - to me, it was all a bit of fun, but nothing more. He seemed genuinely hurt, which to my whatever-the-opposite-of-credit-is, I found even funnier.

With hindsight of course, I was being an uber-douche, but I remember at the time being surprised at how seriously this faceless dude on the other side of a UNIX text interface took our 'relationship'. I wondered at the time whether his dismay was a homophobic response to finding out that wife's sword was pork instead of steel.

The end result was my abandoning of that character and embracing my inner douchebag by starting a new character, a thief. I spent the next few weeks robbing blind everyone I could. Ahhhh, great days...

Tell me about it. Back when I used to play WoW I joined a small, casual guild that was super friendly and relaxed. Fast forward about a year, and I'm the reluctant co-GM of the same guild which is still friendly and relaxed, but unfortunately also an integral part of an alliance of small guilds that is NOT friendly and relaxed. Other member guilds were constantly quitting, splitting, merging, and transferring to different servers. Our "Council" of GMs spent ridiculous amounts of time trying to reach consensus on issues relating to loot distribution, raid signups, guild membership, etc.

My guildmates and I were forced to act as mediators between other guilds, which eventually ended up introducing drama into our own little island of sanity. Eventually I quit playing the game entirely and have never been seriously invested in any MMO since. Outside looking in is a good place to be sometimes.

Great piece that really took me back to my clan days in Quake. For all the stress and annoyances that those four years entailed (not helped by my immaturity in some ways), they also rewarded me greatly with little moments that we shared. Often, the aim wasn't even to play the game as it was meant to be played, but to just goof around on a server for hours on end.

...and this was before voice communication was in any serious way widespread.

I have been caught in the middle of three divorcing guilds, being an officer in two of them. It was not pleasant. My WoW endgame was always raiding, so that put size and dependability requirements on my guilds. I always found it incredibly upsetting and stressful during the days when it was dying. There would be cliques, schisms, tantrums, walkouts, followed by a guild too small or with the wrong classes to raid properly. Then another recruitment drive would begin, and we'd have to start again.

God, I hated all that stuff. Since then I've really resisted external structure to my gaming, having to be online at certain times, or getting in situations where leaving would be bad for a lot of other people. It's easier that way. The times when we took Molten Core or BWL bosses for the first time, or the first time we cleared Karazhan remain the pinnacles of my gaming life, golden moments of pure emotion and exultation, but I'm never, ever going back.

I split from my old guild mid last year, ran by a good friend I'd met perhaps 3-4 year prior to that inside WoW. She was perhaps my best friend, to the point her and her boyfriend were considering paying to fly me over to the US and meet them. However, due to a pretty royal screw up on my part, partially in game, and oddly enough, because I posted my characters for all to see on this very website, very frightening online stalkers she'd been trying to avoid for months found her in WoW once again. My intentions were unimportant, the results were the same either way, and she wanted nothing to do with me from that point and I left the guild and the server, moved or deleted all my characters.

I understand all too well the relationships that can develop through simple 1s and 0s travelling back and forth, and the very real hurt you feel when those relationships collapse...

The thread in the MMO forum was pretty boring. Very little name-calling, blame-dodging, or incoherent rants. I think these guys are doing it wrong.

Not the most exciting thing but, as someone who only occasionally lurks around the MMO forum, BHA always seemed so full of sweetness and light. It's weird to think that there were simmering tensions that are hinted at in the Sock Drawer thread.

"Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." ― H.L. Mencken

Great read Sean! I remember guild drama quite well from my WoW days, and I don't miss it in the least. I was part of a small group of IRL friends, and we basically got in with another larger guild and sort of merged with them. We developed some great friendships with the fellow officers of the newly formed "megaguild", even resulting in a long weekend trip to Las Vegas that was totally awesome in every way. There was always drama though, among some members or others. I have to say, I don't miss trying to organize 40+ people every week.

This article is not about that guild drama. It is about the grandness of the personal fallout I witnessed in people who I had never really realized placed such identity and stake into this online platform. It is about the reality that I am only just beginning to comprehend — that relationships of a purely online nature are now as complex, sophisticated and potentially devastating when they fall apart as any in meat space.

It is also about being an outsider.

It is, I think, also an issue of intimacy, both for you and the people involved in the schism. In the primoridal days of MMOs and online play, I was very much like you. I often joined guilds or clans but rarely felt connected to them in any meaningful and never remained with any of those communities for any lengthy period of time. But that was BV, Before Vent (or TeamSpeak).

The advent of voice comms for games has added a profound level of connectivity, enabling us to learn about each other's real lives in a strange yet more natural way than typed chat ever could.

In the Vent that I frequent, I often hear snippets of conversation from my guildmate's lives, ranging from a petulant child's complaint, to the disapproving warning from a spouse or even the random barking of a pet. These audible peaks into private lives, coupled with the conversations that take place in the frequent downtimes of MMOs turn online strangers into something much more. Perhaps not friends in the historical real word sense of the word, but something very close.

However, I wonder about the limitations of medium and of the human condition when it comes to community size. I don't know the particulars of the GWJ WoW guild, but it sounds like it was fairly sizable. If so, I think it would be a pretty natural occurrence for cliques to develop over time. Once the cliques are formed it is but a hop, skip and jump to drama. I tend to think that a guild changes once it grows beyond a dozen or so active members, and that Vent doesn't have the same unifying ability if there are 20 or so people in a channel, of if you have 10 members using voice and 10 using chat. I'm not arguing that guilds shouldn't grow that large, only that they come with inherent issues regarding interpersonal relationships.

I am most likely just rambling at this point, but your comment about being an outsider got me wondering about the use of voice comms in the GWJ WoW guild, both by you and by the two sides that split apart.

Posting on the boards is easy. The trick is to kick someone's ass the first day, or become someone's bitch. Chiggie Von Richthofen on how to transition from lurker to poster.

The thread in the MMO forum was pretty boring. Very little name-calling, blame-dodging, or incoherent rants. I think these guys are doing it wrong.

Not the most exciting thing but, as someone who only occasionally lurks around the MMO forum, BHA always seemed so full of sweetness and light. It's weird to think that there were simmering tensions that are hinted at in the Sock Drawer thread.

Oh, absolutely. I was just pointing out that as far as guild breakups go, this one was incredibly civil.

Point of order. Isn't that a picture of a man on the inside looking out? Shenanigans.

After a fairly long stint of running and being part of guilds and clans, I've grown too busy and preoccupied to get super involved in that stuff anymore. Even outside the organized clan space, I have a strong aversion to getting too deep and long term into any online game because it's inevitable that people become overly attached and small things like patches and minor behavior quirks are magnified, loaded into a rocket and then shot to the drama moon.

I like being on the ground floor when it's new and everyone is still in the discovery phase and having fun. Once it's less about the discovery and more about HOW things are done, whose in charge, who sucks, whose good, what game types people want, which mods, cheap tactics, etc. it becomes something bigger than I'm willing to delve into. Light and fun is definitely my mode.

“We are all capable of becoming fundamentalists because we get addicted to other people’s wrongness.”
~Pema Chödrön

The thread in the MMO forum was pretty boring. Very little name-calling, blame-dodging, or incoherent rants. I think these guys are doing it wrong.

Not the most exciting thing but, as someone who only occasionally lurks around the MMO forum, BHA always seemed so full of sweetness and light. It's weird to think that there were simmering tensions that are hinted at in the Sock Drawer thread.

Oh, absolutely. I was just pointing out that as far as guild breakups go, this one was incredibly civil.

But dude, they used the term "blacklist". I can only imagine some kind of McCarthy-esque trial. teehee.
I feel like most of it is summed up by this

The thread in the MMO forum was pretty boring. Very little name-calling, blame-dodging, or incoherent rants. I think these guys are doing it wrong.

Not the most exciting thing but, as someone who only occasionally lurks around the MMO forum, BHA always seemed so full of sweetness and light. It's weird to think that there were simmering tensions that are hinted at in the Sock Drawer thread.

Oh, absolutely. I was just pointing out that as far as guild breakups go, this one was incredibly civil.

But dude, they used the term "blacklist". I can only imagine some kind of McCarthy-esque trial. teehee.
I feel like most of it is summed up by this

tundra wrote:

I just want to play with all my friends instead of some of them.

It's a really poignant thread, and fully sums up why I don't play much in the way of online games.

Well,... my general sucktitude, sh*tty internet and aversion to drama all conspire to keep me out of the online game space. I couldn't keep up with the GWJ Civ IV Pitboss game because of my intertubes, but I have a lot of stress and drama in my day, I don't need the same thing from my entertainment.

"Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." ― H.L. Mencken

I'm in line with a lot of the comments here. I have neither the time, nor the inclination to deal with online guild/clan drama.

Contrary to Elysium's comments, however, I do not believe that online relationships have the same depth as face-to-face personal relationships. Or I should say, should not have the same depth. It is one thing to be "friends" with someone online. It is quite another to actually hang with that person, grab a beer, etc. It is like the online dating. You can have all of the emails, chats, and phone calls you want, but it isn't until you are face to face (potentially reading body language) that you know.

A Cigar, much like Scotch and Monogamy, is an acquired taste.

McChuck wrote:

I'd recommend the Scottish martial art known as f*ck You. It's mostly just head butting and then kicking people when they're on the ground.

Contrary to Elysium's comments, however, I do not believe that online relationships have the same depth as face-to-face personal relationships. Or I should say, should not have the same depth. It is one thing to be "friends" with someone online. It is quite another to actually hang with that person, grab a beer, etc. It is like the online dating. You can have all of the emails, chats, and phone calls you want, but it isn't until you are face to face (potentially reading body language) that you know.

This could have summed up my feelings not so long ago.

Now, I'm much much less sure.

The thing about smart people is they seem like crazy people to dumb people -- Thing I saw on the Internet

Point of order. Isn't that a picture of a man on the inside looking out? Shenanigans.

Yes, but see, by being isolated inside the building, he is actually outside of the world going on around him. By being sheltered within the artificial walls that break him off from the world, he is ...

Oh, shut up.

The thing about smart people is they seem like crazy people to dumb people -- Thing I saw on the Internet

Point of order. Isn't that a picture of a man on the inside looking out? Shenanigans.

Ahhhh, but he is looking in upon the amazing moving social world while leaving grease smears on the glass of his predictable and isolated comfort zone.

Edit: Damn, it took me that long to post this. Shamed and beaten sir. Good day.

I'm along similar lines as Sean when it comes to my guild/clan attitude I believe. I joined my first official clan two winters ago for CoD 4 and CoD WaW, and had a fun time playing but just couldn't drum up the passion to wholeheartedly commit to the scheduled play of even semi-hardcore clans. Drama would come and pass, and I would continue to game.

I like being on the ground floor when it's new and everyone is still in the discovery phase and having fun. Once it's less about the discovery and more about HOW things are done ... it becomes something bigger than I'm willing to delve into. Light and fun is definitely my mode.

In my view you are choosing to opt out just as it becomes most interesting. What's the point of being a part of a guild if you don't know the people in it? I lament the departure of folks because I spent months working on content with them, getting to know them, and appreciating their company. That - to me - is the point of Massive gaming. If you're playing an MMO and have no interest whatsoever in social gaming, I think you're missing the point.

GWJ Alliance has been the best online gaming organization I've had the pleasure of being a part of; I joined almost a year into Lich King, at a time when almost everyone was already bored with the content available. I've yet to have a real full-on expansion rush with my favorite gaming family, and I greatly look forward to it.

I have been playing MMoRPGs, and MUDs before that for the past 16 years. I have seen, been in, been an officer in, and been a guild leader even. Drama and guild break ups are something I have come to expect over the years. Different people have different ways of doing things and they don't always match up.

GWJ Alliance was a home to me over the years, and like when you finally graduate from school, you have to leave home sometime and develop a new relationship with your parents.

I can understand where you're coming from, Elysium. I always (back when I played MMO's) felt a very distinct emotional separation between my online relationships and my real life ones. It's not that I thought the people I was talking to weren't real or anything; it's that I tended to mentally confine them to the PC space--like they were in an aquarium, and our interactions only mattered inside that habitat.

So when two of my fellow DAOC guild officers showed up at my door one evening, it was uncomfortably surreal, like having someone on your CounterStrike team step out of your monitor and molest you with their warm Dorito breath. They had proposed the idea about a week earlier, taking me by surprise that they wanted to fly from opposite ends of the country to meet me, right in the middle. I realized very quickly after their arrival that they had really just been interested in meeting one another, to explore a potentially more meaningful relationship. One of them was married. I took them out on the town, but before long their sole focus on MMO talk--seriously, they spoke of nothing else the entire night--and cringe-inducingly clumsy flirtation had me quietly sipping my beer in the corner of the booth, trying hard to focus on my shoelaces. I still liked them, though, and was glad to return to our shared virtual space a few days later.

The guild lasted only a few months after that, and its dissolution was as emotional and dramatic as any I've seen, in no small part because I knew the online breakup, at least for the two of them, was occurring in parallel to a real life breakup. The woman stopped cheating on her husband, and the two of them parted ways in both real and virtual life. I saw them both around after that, and got guild invites from both of them, but I never joined either of their new outfits. The fun I had in our guild was what kept me playing DAOC, and after the guild breakup my playing time grew less and less frequent. I quit the game entirely within six months.

I'm in line with a lot of the comments here. I have neither the time, nor the inclination to deal with online guild/clan drama.

Contrary to Elysium's comments, however, I do not believe that online relationships have the same depth as face-to-face personal relationships. Or I should say, should not have the same depth. It is one thing to be "friends" with someone online. It is quite another to actually hang with that person, grab a beer, etc. It is like the online dating. You can have all of the emails, chats, and phone calls you want, but it isn't until you are face to face (potentially reading body language) that you know.

I think this is a pretty important point. You can have some kind of relationship with people online, but up until you meet face to face that relationship will stay.. distant to some degree. I think a big indicator of this would be how much time you spend just talking about your life with someone online, (and not in the pour-out-your-heart-to-strangers variety either) as opposed to how much time you spend just talking about what you're doing in the game.

I believe people create touchpoints with each other based on the emotional bandwidth available, and when your only touchpoint is a common interest in a single game, you tend to have very little attachment to each other.

Oh, people may feel strong emotions, but I wonder how long they last compared to 'Real Life'? How many of those guild members who left are you going to chase down and play with just because they're your friends? Few to none I'd guess.

Then you get to mix in the phenomenon of the online persona, and you end up realising that you can't really trust much of what comes at you from the PC screen, simply because it's so easy to be deceptive. And the way you play a game may have no bearing on how you are in real life either; I would consider myself to be a very honest person in Real Life(TM), but in RPG games I tend to be a thief that takes everything that's not bolted down and stabs old ladies for their $0.25 too.